SpacePreservation.orghttp://spacepreservation.org/wordpress
Preserving America's Empty SpacesTue, 28 Nov 2017 22:27:16 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.9Saving endangered specieshttp://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2792
http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2792#respondMon, 27 Nov 2017 05:09:17 +0000http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2792The Washington Post on 26 November 2017 published an op-ed entitled We don’t need to save endangered species. Extinction is part of evolution, by R. Alexander Pyron, Associate Professor of Biology at the George Washington University. His thesis: extinction is an essential ingredient of evolution; if natural selection is a good thing, then extinction is a good thing. Humans should not be concerned about extinctions caused by their activities; these are merely a consequence of human superiority in the game of natural selection and survival of the fittest.

What nonsense.

Human competition with other species is not natural. Humans cheat. Other species are limited in their environmental influence by the energy of their own bodies. Humans not. We use massive amounts of external energy to make our local environment into what we want it to be. Do you like 70 degrees? You got it, even if it is -40° outside, or +120º. This local environmental manipulation has far reaching consequences: logging and mining for the structure of the environmental bubble (house, office building, or automobile); fossil fuel for heating and cooling; roads, pipelines, and power lines to tie it all together and keep it working. And for each of these parts, more of the same.

Inter-species competition in this environment is not natural; it is inter-species competition on a human template. Imagine a chess game in which the “white” player can move white pieces, and the “black” player can move black pieces AND can move the chess board squares. Oh, was your white piece on the square that I just moved? What a shame! Checkmate! This is not competition, it is corruption.

Do not think that this is all about climate change and carbon emissions. We may switch to clean energy sources—although there is woefully inadequate progress in this direction—and the systems that serve our comfort remain, and these will continue to do immense ecological damage. These unintentional destructions are at least as damaging as intentional ones (killing of animals, including fish, for food or sport; clear-cutting of forests; deforestation for farming). Much of the unintentional destruction is associated with power lines, pipelines, railroads, and especially roads—and the many things that are build alongside roads; these are well documented in the literature of road ecology [4,8-13].

Humans are dependent on ecosystems, and ecosystems are dependent on the species within them. Each time that we annihilate a species we put an ecosystem at risk. Each time we put an ecosystem at risk—which is our usual and indirect way of annihilating or locally extirpating species—we diminish our flexibility in depending on ecosystems for our biological sustenance, and we do depend on ecosystems. As inconvenient as it may be, it is in humankind’s best interest to preserve species and the habitats and ecosystems on which they depend. Another inconvenient truth.

There is also the profound aesthetic of nature, which has inspired people since they were able to paint on cave walls. Have we lost our humanity? Have we sunk to a place where we are willing to live in a mechanical world? As Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring:

Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good? Such thinking, in the words of the ecologist Paul Shepard, “idealizes life with only its head out of water, inches above the limits of toleration of the corruption of its own environment . . . Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”

]]>http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=27920E. O. Wilson’s Half Earthhttp://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2765
http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2765#respondFri, 10 Nov 2017 01:19:12 +0000http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2765In Half Earth, his latest book, renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson has written an impassioned plea to save Earth’s biological resources by reserving half of the earth for nature. He proposes to set aside areas where human impacts on ecosystems are deliberately minimized, in the model of large national parks and nature reserves—but on a scale of conservation vastly greater than what has ever before been imagined. He presents compelling evidence that much of the earth’s biological heritage, the product of four billion years of evolution, depends on conservation at that scale.

Dr. Wilson has erected a high goalpost. There are enormous political and economic barriers to scoring on his goal if the approach is a frontal one, attempting to directly set aside such huge areas. What Dr. Wilson’s book lacks is a realistic strategy; I surmise that he trusts others to figure out how to move towards his goal.

The need is compelling. Dr. Wilson reviews the extensive evidence that species extinctions, driven by human activities, are proceeding at rates that have rarely been exceeded in Earth’s history, and only then by great cosmic catastrophes known from the geologic record1. Among those would be the massive Chicxulub meteor impact 66 million years ago, which obscured the sun for years, removed roughly 75% of species, ended the age of dinosaurs, and inaugurated the age of mammals.

To humans living in developed economies, it is not immediately evident that we are, to the same degree as other species, dependent on ecosystems. Our ecological independence is, however, an illusion; we breath oxygen and eat food that is ultimately made by plants. But for those who do not live in hunter-gatherer mode, or in subsistence farming mode, it may seem that we are dependent on our grocery store and not on ecology. We humans have learned to cheat nature, using external energy rather than our innate energy—the limit for all other species—to control our immediate environment and to bring needed ecological products to us. This cheating of nature allows us to live in hostile places—I have myself spent many weeks on the Antarctic Ice Cap—and, therefore, allows us to invade any (all?) ecosystem(s).

In nature, ecosystem dependence is often immediate and compelling. Take away one species and another species that depends on that species dies, or perhaps ten others die. Ecological blindness to these realities fosters political and economic systems that focus on the short term; these systems ignore the large scale and the long term, and take no action on their behalf. Jobs and profits trump long term stewardship of the planet and its biota.

In considering conservation at this scale, I have to ask what has been overlooked. Are there unstated principles that might help the cause? I believe that two principles are overlooked in Half Earth and are generally overlooked by ecologists and conservationists:

Economic rules can be used to compensate for loss of separation in one place by protecting separation in another, nearby and ecologically similar, place.

The first point turns most ecological analysis on its head, although not in an oppositional way—it is just a difference of perspective. Ecologists, including Dr. Wilson, generally work to unravel the complex web of interactions—cause and effect—that describe operation of an ecosystem. If one uses this approach in an effort to understand human induced change, then complexity becomes overwhelming; Dr. Wilson himself makes this point. By thinking in terms of immunity to human influences rather than myriad individual influences, the problem can be seen perhaps less precisely, but also more tractably—one can see the forest of human influence rather than its separate trees. Distance from obvious human disturbances does not provide immunity from influence in a neat linear way—global climate change driven by human activity anywhere on the planet is a cogent demonstration (an influence that reaches everywhere)—but distance generally must diminish influence, because an influence that could increase with distance would overwhelm things far away, and we know that this is generally not true2. The relatively recent literature on road ecology, which describes myriad effects of roads on natural systems, documents wildly differing ranges of these influences. There is no defensible weighting system to add this ensemble of effects into a single summary metric of “total road effect.” It is time, however, to recognize that valuable conservation insight—and conservation action—can be based on the concept of immunity to this host of effects.

So, if we can provide separation from human disturbance, then we will improve ecological conditions. This observation validates the high goal expressed in Half Earth, and also offers an avenue for local action. What if we can, within an area of relative ecological uniformity (an ecoregion), provide protection based on distance from disturbance—recognizing that distance in a general way translates to immunity from ecological effects? That protection, locally implemented and applied over broad areas, certainly leads in the direction of Half Earth’s goal. This idea reflects back to a classic conservation slogan: “think globally, act locally.”

The second point is that, by employing a metric that counts both area and distance, and attaching financial consequences to changes in such a metric, profits that accrue from development can be harnessed to protect nearby and ecologically similar undisturbed space.Development can pay for conservation, a radical idea. In other words, development can pay for conservation, a radical idea. Such a system will be both fairer and more palatable if the payments are not based directly on dollars (or another currency), but on the metric itself. If a development will diminish the metric, and the immunity that it expresses, by a certain amount—then the developer, who will be making profit in some way from the development, must provide protections of an equal amount (or in some other ratio) nearby.

How might we construct an area-and-distance metric? With a geographic information system (GIS), we can take a map of human disturbances and from that generate a map that measures, on a regular grid, the distance to the nearest disturbance. For any land parcel, we multiply the area by the average distance to disturbance. This metric expresses space in a new and useful way. It can be applied to, for instance, a single farm, a county, or a state. As one would expect and desire, this space metric is additive; for example, the space in a state is the total of the spaces of its constituent counties. If one takes, for example, a square mile (or square kilometer) bounded by roads, then the space metric is 1/6 cubic mile (km)3. If one adds two roads that run parallel to the sides of the square, between the center points of the sides—thus creating four smaller squares—then the new metric is 1/12 cubic mile (km). In other words, bisecting an area in both directions without changing area will decrease the area-and-distance (space) metric by half. Experiments with various configurations of disturbances make the undelying principle clear: invasions into previously open space reduce the metric because invasions diminish mean distance to disturbance.

To see how this works, do an experiment in your home. Choose a room that has some furniture near the center of the room, then move all the furniture to the walls. Doing this, you will increase the room’s average distance to a piece of furniture (our surrogate for human disturbances) and you will leave a large open space in the center. It is no accident that furniture is often moved in this way for dances and parties; it provides unobstructed distance.

Large space, understood as the product of area × mean distance to human disturbance, ensures large separation between human disturbance and ecological resources—not everywhere, but in some parts of the measured area, else the mean distance to disturbance could not be large, nor could the metric formed from it be large because it incorporates mean distance as a multiplicative factor. Thus, large space ensures—in relative terms—some areas of high immunity to disturbances.

Footnotes:1 Dr. Wilson is one of many biologists and ecologists who have written about the irrecoverable loss of species in what is now often called the sixth extinction. An excellent summary of this extinction, written for the non-specialist, is The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. Look here for a description of this book.2 This is a general principle first articulated by geographer Waldo Tobler and known as Tobler’s First Law of Geography.3 Within a square, the average distance to an edge is 1/6 of the length of the edge.

]]>http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=27650Protected space: where will we end up?http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2708
http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2708#respondSat, 14 Oct 2017 19:49:16 +0000http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2708Our time—right now—is not exceptional. Rather, it is just another point in the continuum of time. We do not occupy the center of time any more than the earth occupies the center of the universe.

When we apply the idea of non-exceptionalism to the present time, we can learn interesting things about our future efforts to protect space.

Some time span that we are interested in—in this case, the interval of a particular space preservation program—can be depicted as a timeline. If our present time is not exceptional, then it should not be particularly close to either the beginning or the end of the timeline. The simplest expression of this is that today is somewhere (anywhere) between the 25% and the 75% points on the timeline. Because this interval is 50% of the total length of the timeline, there is 50% probability of falling somewhere in the 25%-75% interval.

Now let’s apply these ideas to a specific case. Fort Collins, Colorado, the home town of SpacePreservation.org, began its tax supported open space purchase program in 1992, 25 years before this 2017 writing. That is 25 years of history; what can this history, combined with the perspective of non-exceptionalism of the present, tell us about likely futures?

If we are at the 25% point of the program’s timeline, then the program will endure for 100 years (25 years = 25% of a 100-year timeline). If we are at the 75% point, then the program will endure for only 33.3 years (25 years = 75% of a 33.3-year timeline). The Fort Collins space preservation program is 50% likely to end sometime between 2025 and 2092.We have already noted that there is 50% probability that our present, unexceptional time lies between these two timeline points. We can say, therefore, that the program is 50% likely to endure for somewhere between 33 and 100 years, i.e. it will end sometime between 2025 (1992 + 33) and 2092 (1992 + 100).

Our analysis is, of course, naive. The Fort Collins program has, in fact, tax support that extends beyond 2025—but such commitments can always be rescinded. Nothing is certain, and the point of our analysis is to get a general idea of program durability, based only on past experience and not on all the bedeviling details.

Similar reasoning can be applied to put bounds on the ultimate amount of space that may be preserved. In 2017, Fort Collins has 35,000 acres1 in its protected space system. Rather than a timeline, we can reference to a “preserved space line” that also runs from 0% at the start of the program to 100% at its culmination. In a manner similar to the timeline, we can say that there is 50% probability that we are somewhere between the 25% and the 75% points on the preserved space line. The Fort Collins open space program is 50% likely to protect between 47,000 and 140,000 acres.If 35,000 acres happens to be at the 25% point, then the space protected at the end of the program will be 140,000 acres; if it is at the 75% point, then the program will top out at 47,000 acres. Thus, there is 50% probability that the program will ultimately protect somewhere between 47,000 and 140,000 acres.

Again, this is a naive analysis because it ignores such factors as the increasing price of land, diminishing supply of open space available for preservation, and so on. Nevertheless, it gives a broad idea of where current efforts may end up. This uncertainty is in contrast to the specific space conservation end point that can be achieved by adjusting economic incentives (see the web page on Regulations).

Footnote:1 The Fort Collins program, like all others, expresses its space preservation in terms of area rather than space volume.

]]>http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=27080Play with space in your homehttp://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2147
http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2147#respondSun, 18 Dec 2016 22:41:43 +0000http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=2147It is easy to learn about space! Take a look at our newly posted page about playing with space in your home: Play with it—Space in your home.
]]>http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=21470Open Space Trumped?http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=1885
http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=1885#respondThu, 01 Dec 2016 21:13:39 +0000http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=1885I worked long enough in Washington DC to know that the political system has incredible ability to stonewall, hinder, and delay. Donald Trump will not be able to do much of what he promised during his campaign. Republicans whom he insulted during his campaign will be less than wholehearted supporters of Trump’s agenda, and of course Democrats will be persistent opponents.

What are the elements of Trump’s agenda that are most toxic to open space?

First is a general hostility to environmental protection. When a real estate developer is delayed or required to mitigate environmental damage, there will certainly be a sympathetic ear in the White House—and efforts to roll back environmental laws and rules that impede development, particularly to the extent that this can be accomplished by executive order. As our web site demonstrates, development is what destroys open space, so a pro-development stance in DC is automatically a stance in opposition to open space.

Second is an aggressive promotion of economic growth. Economic growth amplifies all the factors that give value to roads (see our web page The Value of Roads), and this inevitably tilts the financial incentive system more in favor of roads and less in favor of preservation of open space (see our web page The Tilted Incentive System).

These forces aligned against open space may not last for long, but the best bulwark against loss of space is compensation: space protection as a price for space loss. The system, which presently gives all advantages to development, needs to be fixed.

]]>http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=18850Our Missionhttp://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=15
http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=15#respondWed, 14 Mar 2012 15:15:58 +0000http://spacepreservation.org/wordpress/?p=15SpacePreservation.org is a place for the exchange of information and ideas about how to preserve part of the American heritage: its “empty” spaces. These are the spaces where nothing is built; they include a significant amount of space that is not publicly owned, not protected by conservation easement, not necessarily publicly accessible—just not filled with human-built stuff, at least not yet. Farmlands are a prime example; these are not natural (the natural ecosystem has been replaced by an artificial ecosystem), but they have few buildings and roads.1

Before the 1880’s, the United States had a real western frontier, beyond which population, roads, and buildings were sparse. New trails, roads, and railroads invaded the western wilderness. Since then, the invasion has been internal. Every space, every “hole” in the network of roads and railroads, is a space to be invaded with new roads, drilling pads, buildings, factories, mines, wind farms, and so on. Unless we develop incentives that slow the internal invasion, then we will pack all space with the paraphernalia of industrialized culture, what geographers call “the built environment.”

Some empty spaces are protected, either by conservation easement or by public ownership. Unfortunately, public ownership has not been a reliable protection for empty spaces, but public lands are not the focus of SpacePreservation.org. There is a substantial amount of empty space on private land that is particularly vulnerable to invasion; most Americans have seen these places invaded by urban sprawl. Conservation easements protect some space from invasion, but financial rewards for conservation easements are generally small compared to rewards for development, and funds to support conservation easements are scarce. Better reward balance has been achieved in some states through tax advantages for conservation easements, but there is a long way to go before the playing field is level between conservation and development.

The challenge for our time is to devise new ways to level the playing field. Core proposed innovations are:

measure and monitor empty space, based on an objective space metric

develop a space credit market, based on the same metric; and

require developers to purchase space credits before building (a long term possibility).

Major topics for discussion are:

measurement of empty space

economic and ecological benefits of space preservation

valuation of empty space

policies that enhance or diminish empty space

the history of space preservation; case histories

innovation in space preservation.

The ideas discussed here are not restricted to the United States; they relate to questions of sustainable human occupation of land everywhere. Everyone is welcome!

1 In some contexts, agricultural lands may not be considered to be open space because of their human manipulation. An example occurs where natural grassland conservation is a goal. In such places, invasion of agriculture into natural ecosystems may be considered to be invasion of open (undisturbed) space. This is an example of a special foil against which space can be measured. For more information about foils, see Measuring Space II.